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Russia’s ForMin says Euro parliament is right by demanding probe into Odessa events

MOSCOW, May 9. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry believes the European Parliament is right by demanding from Kiev an investigation into the tragic events that took place in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa on May 2, 2014, Deputy Foreign Minister Konstantin Dolgov twitted on Friday.

"Members of the European Parliament have demanded from Kiev to at last investigate the tragedy in Odessa," Dolgov said. "Is Europe wising up? Ukraine’s authorities should have been brought to their senses long ago."

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Russian top diplomat blasts European media coverage of Odessa tragedy

On Thursday, some members of the European Parliament demanded from Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk to present results of the investigation into the Odessa tragedy and killings in downtown Kiev in February 2014, said an open letter received by TASS.

Thirteen members of the European Parliament from eight EU countries put their signatures under the letter appealing to Yatsenyuk to use all his opportunities for presenting immediately results of the investigation into the Maidan killings, mass killings in Odessa along with numerous examples of selective justice and procedural violations.

The MPs expressed hope to receive a detailed answer from Yatsenyuk.

The city of Odessa saw riots on May 2, 2014, during which Right Sector militants (the movement recognised as an extremist organisation in Russia) and so-called "Maidan self-defence" representatives from Kiev set ablaze the Trade Unions House, where their opponents hid, and a tent camp where activists were collecting signatures for a referendum on Ukraine’s federalization and for the status of a state language for Russian. The attackers did not let anyone leave the burning Trade Unions House building.

At least 48 people were reported dead and 247 injured in the clashes and in the fire in the Trade Unions House. Some Ukrainian politicians asserted that the death toll reached 116 but that the Kiev authorities concealed the facts. Investigators have so far failed to name those guilty of the crime.

At least 22 people have been charged with organising riots. Eleven suspects out of them are under arrest and another eleven are on the wanted list. At the same time, investigators have failed to find evidence proving the arson of the Trade Unions House had been planned. Odessa’s Malinovsky district court sent the indictment back to the Prosecutor General’s Office for further investigation, pointing out that the indictment accusing 22 persons of involvement in the tragic events on May 2 lacked details and factual evidence proving the suspects’ guilt.

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